Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - S5 E12 | Fear The Walking Dead

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

FEAR THE WALKING DEAD TITLED: Ner Tamid This is Talking Fear… With myself Jeff Fisher and Jason Buttrill EPISODE DESCRIPTION ON IMDB  In search of a permanent home for the convoy, Charlie is drawn to a synagogue where she encounters a Rabbi surviving on his own. Elsewhere, Sarah and Dwight face unexpected foes Listen each week as we discuss the episode and look ahead to what the future may hold… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Season 5, episode 12 of Fear, the Walking Dead, titled Nurtamed. That's Hebrew for Eternal Flame, by the way. And that makes this Talking Fear. Welcome to it. Talking Fear, that is, with myself, Jeff Fisher, Jason Butchell, and of course, I guess Maximus will be back for Dead. You know, he doesn't graces with his presence anymore for this Fear podcast. The episode description on IMDB in search of a permanent home for the convoy.

Charlie is drawn to a synagogue where she encounters a rabbi surviving on his own. Elsewhere, Sarah and Dwight face unexpected foes. Hi, Jason. Why, hello there. How are you? Good. So, as agonizing as this episode was. Shut up.

Are you serious? It was not. It was. This might have been my favorite episode. of the Oh, how did I know that was gum? I should have talked to you

before the show even started. I enjoyed the episode. I did enjoy the episode. Up to the point where another episode of not going anywhere. What did we do?

We got nowhere. Well, okay. Yeah, which is interesting because how can a caravan go nowhere? I mean, that's the entire basis. Right. No, I see what you're saying,

but it's wrong. I thought they finally did get like some direction they did lead do something like the whole point of the episode was you know I like the whole how do I even describe this without jumping ahead the whole point was that character was

Charlie was led there either by a higher power or not by a higher power but what they the lesson they learned was okay this is what we need we need a home base uh June added to that with, okay, maybe I've been too hardcore. We need a final resting place. Maybe I've been too hardcore.

You know, like we passed up, I don't know. Daniel's huge place. We passed up, I don't know, I'm all. You know, stuff like that. Yeah. It's all. Yeah. I didn't say it was smart at all.

And it made any sense. It doesn't. But at least now it seems like the direction is, okay, deal with the Apple Dumpling gang that's trying to act like they're all hardcore. Such a good name for them. Um, and, uh, they're gonna, there's gonna be a shootout at the, uh, okay rock quarry. And, um, they're, um, they're, um, they're, um, they're, um, they're, they're gonna resolve that. They're, then they're gonna find a home base. That's what, that's what's gonna happen.

And then they're going to continue doing their acts, you know, good, good, yeah, good deeds, uh, from home base. Whatever. Whatever. Um, I found it interesting that again, and we can, you know, before let, we'll just break down the episode, of course. We brought in another strong character, right? The rabbi. I love that actor. He's so good. You know, Rabbi Jacob Kessler.

I mean, another strong character we throw into the fear mix. He was, do you have, what have you watched him before? I mean, he's, how many, I, I didn't even look because I just enjoy his work. And I couldn't tell you the list. So we could go there and look fast enough for sure to look at his past, which is, you know, deservedly great. I really became a fan of it. There's a sci-fi film that was a show that was on, gosh, what was that?

Maybe USA or T&T or something like that. But it was about like aliens, you know, come down and they start partitioning off cities. And it's sci-fi. But he was like the good slash bad guy. You could never tell if he was good or bad. And he was so good in that show. I cannot remember the name of that show. But I became an internal fan of his ever since then.

He's just a powerful, powerful actor. And you notice that they're really loading up on. names now. Yes, they are. It started with the addition of June and what's his name, her husband, gosh, John, John Dory, all those people, like really strong actors. The problem is they just don't feature them enough when they have them. So even if we do have this, like, good actor, how many episodes can we expect to see him in?

Well, that's a good question. Because how many great parts, great characters did we not see last night? We didn't see Daniel again. This is how many in a row? Right. And I thought Charlie was his. And she just wanders off without him because she's bored and doesn't want to be with the caravan and circle the wagons. That's right.

Daniel was with the caravan. Remember? Right. No, I understand. Where'd he go? But he's not there. I mean, is he over? Is he in the oil fields?

You know, with, the handicapped guy? I guess it's possible, but they didn't show him in the preview, did they? No. It's painfully obvious that they just can't pay him. So they just have him every once in a while. It's got to be it. So I mean, it's like, I want to get excited about this, you know, about the rabbi character,

but it's like, I don't know. I don't have, I don't have faith that you're going to see him every episode. No. No, no way. And especially now because they're saying that, you know, know, they're going to try to move on, right? Yeah, I tell you what, from the, from the gigo of the opening scene, I was so, I was really digging the whole caravan, like just the logistics of it.

How they set up and everything. Yes, I thought we were going to stick with that. That was cool. I was all about that. I was like, this is dope. I mean, they do things really well in the show. It's just such a disappointment that they do everything else so badly, mostly story and writing. That's the biggest, that's the biggest hit on it, obviously.

So I was scrolling through the Peter Jacobson, IMDB page. That's our rabbi. That's our rabbi Peter Jacobson. Yeah. And you were talking about colony. That's it, colony. That's it. He was in the Americans.

That's right. He's got some law and orders under his belt, of course. Only one Madam Secretary. Ray Donovan. I mean, there's plenty of, I mean, he's been an all-com. kinds of episodes of different shows different television shows yeah where he comes in and plays a character i know he's been in some movies who's in house a bunch it's great i see a lot of tv stuff house that's right he was one of the doctors in house but i see a lot of these big time shows where he comes in and does

you know an episode or two which i love anyway that having been said he's still a strong character as we've said in another character that everybody knows and he's now not working. I mean, is he the most expensive actor in Hollywood? No way. But he's earned a slot for a decent paycheck, right? He's not coming in for a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, he's, and that's all unionized. So like, you know, if they have so many like, you know, shows or films under their belt, then they're in that higher tier. It's just set, you know, by the Screen Actors Guild or whatever. So like these no names that come out, they're not paying them nothing. They're at the bare minimum.

But people like this guy are definitely going to cost them. So I see we and this episode again was another episode where we just keep rehashing the same stuff over and over again. Like we did the, didn't we already have the fire truck ladder scene

already in the member of the city with Morgan and we came down the fire ladder and the fire truck and the rescue with them? And we already have that. Again we had another ladder fire truck. cut across the cars and the walkers scene in this episode trying to get out of the synagogue.

That was a cool scene though. It was tense. Yeah. Okay. It was. I actually got that feeling of we could see a major character go down, which I haven't had that feeling. No, we just keep adding characters on fear.

That's right. You don't take any away. Nobody's in danger of death. There's no doubt about that. And don't forget, that was the reason why, like, Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. there is a reason why those shows were so popular. It's because even though there was already the source material there, you knew certain characters were going to die.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter. And you still had that sense of impending doom. Like, oh my gosh, you know what I mean? Fear does not have that. No, it does not. It's like, we either want them to die so badly because they're annoying, a.k.a. like, Madison.

Like, please die, please. Or Nick, please die. You know, but all the characters that you really like, those should be the ones you're worried about having. an untimely death. Right. But you never see them. But they're cartoon characters.

I don't think they can die. And the ones that we love that we want to be put in situations where, you know, they, they win or they come, you know, they win or they come close to, they come so close to losing. They're not even in the episodes. Yeah. They're off, I don't know, looking for, you know, paint on a tree. Yeah.

Somewhere. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. I just, I really, I was. I was excited, though, along with you at the very beginning, with the caravan and how they stopped and set up the, how they circled the wagons and fenced it in and got comfortable for the nights and stuff. I love that. Yeah. I thought that was cool.

I would have liked to see maybe a half an episode of them just, if we have to live with them traveling around doing good, maybe we spend a half an episode, just having them stop and set up. Right. and sit down and have dinner and then stop and set up. Yeah. You see them, you know, get up at the morning and pack up and go. Yeah. And then stop and set up. Yeah.

You know, that's just me. Yeah. They didn't call. They didn't ask. Yeah, but then that's stupid. So we saw that, but then they had to abruptly leave because like three cars came up. Yeah, the Apple Duffling gang found out where they were. Yeah, a couple of Nissan in a truck.

Are you kidding me? I thought the same thing. I was like, so? Like, literally your gas coach, point that semi-truck directly at those three, it'll probably plow through every single one of them. And I'm like, and you're already, you've got,

you've got the wagon circle, you've got your fence stand, you're protected, and you're worried about the Nissan Centra pulling up. Yeah, right? I think it was actually, I think a Centro was one of the cars. Why is this scary?

Are you kidding me? I mean, granted, they have some, they've demonstrated that they have a few firearms. You know what I mean? Yes, they do. Does this group have no firearms at all? I mean, John's got his couple of six shooters, right?

Morgan's got his extra shortened stick now. And then that episode where they went to the ghost town or whatever, remember that bag of guns? They got guns and ammunition. And, I mean, I thought Daniel had quite a stockpile in his warehouse. Oh, you know he was. I mean, he had a stockpile of stuff. Right. And Daniel is not the type to have a stockpile of stuff and say, oh, I'll leave the guns for later.

Yeah. No way. But that's his number one priority. Right. So they have to have weapon. You know they have some. Yeah. We've seen them before.

So just because another group has some guns, they look like a Sunday school small group. And their Nissan Centra is, look, AMC, you guys need to do a little better job of, like, I don't know, casting this group is a little more scary. Because we're not feeling it. Yeah, Logan does not have the feeling of scariness. I agree. No. And I don't know, you know.

Definitely not his people. So we looked at the, and, you know, we spent the episode with Charlie at the synagogue, and you knew that the, you knew that the rabbi was, wasn't able to shoot his parishioners, you know, because that's where they were all locked up. And he was, you know, some of them were getting out. he could kill them with the knife because they had turned, but he wasn't going to shoot him because he knew them all. And he was there.

But all those scenes are great. Like when, remember when he, he re-secured that little hole where they were getting out? And he put his hands on the, it was a fray. And those are just great. I mean,

this episode had tons of scenes like that. How can you not like this episode? All right, fine. Heresy. See, maybe I jumped. I jumped ahead because of the episode itself was fine. And then we go back to what we've talked about before, standalone episodes.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, fine. That's just, I love it. Where is, where are we going with it? I keep waiting for what we're going, where we're going, what we're doing, where we're supposed to be headed to. And there's none of that.

I'm lost on whether, you know, I mean, I guess the only outcome now is that we fight the apple dumpling gang at the oil fields and we, you know, obviously win. Maybe we lose a character or two. And then that's it, right? That's the end of the season. Yeah. Have a nice day. We're not going to, we're not going to continue to try to travel. We've given up completely on Morgan's plan of traveling to the better place or people that are trying to build a better place because all we want to do is just drive around and find people to help instead of going to a place that's trying to be a better place. place, right?

Right. You have completely given up on that. I don't think that I was almost, I was 90% sure that they were going to link back up in Virginia. I was too. And now it kind of seems like they're not doing that at all. I was too. I was completely sold on that idea.

Unless Morgan gets with June and is like, look, yes, we all, let's point the caravan east because I know where a place where we can settle down is. unless he does say that. And the only way, Dwight's not going to want to do that, though, right? So maybe bringing Dwight in was them saying, no, we're not going back there.

Yeah. Because Dwight's not going to want to go back there. He can't. Because Darrell will have something to say about that. Right. Right. Yeah. No question. No question. I mean, Morgan can maybe be the middleman there for a little bit,

but not for long. Yeah. Not for long. Daryl wins that fight. Yeah. So maybe Dwight, maybe we do finally lose Dwight, and that's when we, in some oil field battle, and that's when we decide that we need to go back. I mean, I have no idea, but for sure Dwight doesn't want to go back.

And, you know, we've had all kinds of great places. I mean, I wish, are we ever going to have a time when the wagons are circled and all of our characters are going to be together? and they're all going to sit down to Mushy Mooshy from the nuke director and sit around the fire. Yeah, I think only, I bet you will only get that on this show with obviously what their budget is.

At the end. At the end. One episode. Yep. Because they budget out all these different episodes if they really want to do like a hardcore like bam type episode. Those are usually episodes, what,

like one, the midseason and the end. And we didn't even do that for midseason. really because we didn't even promote it or anything. It was just like, how we're going to take a couple week break. That floors me. That absolutely floored me. I hadn't, we, remember, we had no idea. We're like, wait, is that next week?

Is that it? What? I know. Not one commercial that I saw. Now, I will say that while I know, again, I'll say I'm with you on the episode. All right. I'll jump into the, I enjoyed the episode. But you are correct with the standalone.

The overall picture, yeah. So, I mean, I saw where. my favorite, and they do it every week. And it's probably a scheduled tweet, a scheduled social media post. So they do it and they get a lot of good from it. But I saw where At the Walking Dead, you know, posted there. What did you think of tonight's new fear? And it has our joint our discussion.

But my favorite quote tweet response to that was from at Ferran Ron 72. I honestly don't know how this show can't be canceled. no story, no direction, no character depth, only lasted a few minutes tonight. Hashtag unwatchable. Spot on pretty much. But we've talked a little bit about, we have had a little bit of character depth, right? We've tried to give us a little bit of character depth. We've tried to give us a little bit of that, which they didn't have in the past.

Right? So we have gotten a little bit of that. However, the story is just stand alone. It's not, there is no. all-out purpose and direction of this episode. I guess, like you said, it was Charlie, you know, making everyone realize that they needed a place instead of being the wanderers.

Okay, well, I mean, they've had plenty of opportunities for that. June isn't going to want to do that. She says she does, but she doesn't want to do that because she's, you know, anytime she gets settled down, she starts thinking that it's the end of the world and has to leave again. That was the whole deal with John in the beginning, right? Right? She was in love and then I can't do this and she's out.

So, and the John and June love story. One of them's got to die. No, I hope it's June. Yeah, I'm not, I'm getting zero chemistry between the two of them. I mean, it doesn't feel like there's that. It feels like, uh, it feels like Rick and, uh, I was with the same thing. Yeah, Michone.

It does. Like, it's forced. Like if they ever had, have they ever shown them like a kissing? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, they have one or two times, yeah. Yeah, I'm just, I felt it more when they did the whole backstory where it showed, you know, when she washed up on John's. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I felt it more then. Now it's just, it's completely gone. Right. I don't know what happened. I don't know if they had a fight off camera or something. Something. I don't know. They did.

They had to go behind the scenes. We've got to find that out. I want one of the inside track. Just email me. Chewing the fat at the blood. place.com. Yes, please. I promise. I'll delete it. I'll never mention your name out loud on the air. And

but I have to know. That had to have happened. You must have. Had to have. I won't call it a dramatic shift because it was never like straight fire, you know, from the beginning. But there was a spark. Yeah, there was something there. Now that's... That's completely gone. Ice Cube. Yeah. John made her pay for dinner. Something happened. He spilled coffee on her on the set. Something. That is absolutely true. Yeah, to comment on that guy's tweet,

the character depth thing, we've gone into that. And another one is they have, like last week's episode, that's all they were trying to do was do character depth. So they have made an effort there. And what we pointed out was, it doesn't matter now that you've put some effort into developing it.

If you have no direction, then it doesn't matter. The depth doesn't mean anything. Depth for these characters with standalone episodes is dumb. Right. It means nothing. So I think they do just go, and maybe that's where we're headed.

Maybe we are headed into our direction, right? Well, it's a tough sell with all the good characters that they've brought on, but the standalone episodes, you know, like each season or every four episodes is a different group or something like that. You know, I'd be okay with that too. Yeah. I'd be right with that. I mean, we talked about that before.

I'd be right with that. But, you know, look. Don't pretend it's not something it's not. Right. Just own it. I just look, though, they're getting, their ratings are top five cable for the week and top five for Sunday nights. Is it overwhelmingly great?

No. Is it good enough to not go anywhere? Absolutely. That's still a big moneymaker. It's just riding the coattels of the main show, which is they're just lucky with it, that they got that. Right. That's a, instead of a time slot hit, it's a coattail hit. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah. Absolutely. You know what? And another, you know, if I can. bitch about something else really quick is... And that's what we're here for.

Okay, that's what I figure. That's why I come in here every day. Or once a week. Why does the major plot line have to be you have to find some place, some permanent forever home? Like, the Walking Dead did that as one of... They did that for a few seasons.

You know what I mean? They were looking for a spot, you know, that they can rest of the other. The prison, you know, they were looking for that. The prison settled down. Okay, fine. You know, they were looking for Alexander. Actually, were they even looking for Alexandria?

To be honest, I don't know that they were looking. I was just going to say, I don't even know that they were looking for the prison. I feel like the prison they came upon it and went like, I feel like with, because since the prison was such a big, a big season, I feel like they came across the prison like, hey, this is someplace that we could use. It wasn't like they were on this. They were going, I guess they were on their service. though they were out wandering around right they were on their search so I guess they

were this is it I guess you always are that's what you know that's what you're always you're always on the search for some sort of some sort of day-to-day life stays the same you're trying to get back to normal or as back close to normal as you can there's so many more plot lines that they can explore to make this interesting like like take for example when they were trying to make it to the CDC see and they were trying to figure out, you know, if there was a cure or all that stuff. That was interesting. Yes, it was.

They weren't looking for a forever home. They were just surviving and they were like there was hope that maybe there's a cure or something. That was a damn good plot line. Yes, it was. I really enjoyed that season. I don't know. The terminus season. Like I don't, I guess you could say that they were looking for a place to go to be safe or to stay or whatever.

But there was just so much intrigue about what the heck is terminus. What is terminus? Yeah. And you were just like, and then to find out that they were cannibals. That was amazing. And somewhat one of the best one-liners to end the season ever. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Oh, come on, man. In that train car? Oh, my gosh. They're messing with the wrong road people. Oh, I loved it. And that was so timely because he had been such a wuss. Yes. For the longest time at the, so we're like, finally he's back.

Thank you. Finally. We knew we were going to get some major A kicking once the season came back. And I was so pumped for that. I know. That was fantastic. Speaking of that, though, we've got, you know, the new Walking Dead comes out October 6th.

So, you know, I mean, talking dead, talking Walking Dead will be back. Thank goodness. And I have, we have a chewing the fat hotline that people call compliments of Patriot Mobile. [phone] is the CTF hotline. And we got a voicemail left. You can call that number and leave a voicemail and give us your reviews.

Tell us what's going on. Tell us what's happening. Just use it to your advantage and be sure that it probably is going to end up on the air. But this particular caller called... We get so many voicemails on this specific podcast that it's hard to pick them out. But I think that we just picked like it was one to 100 that day and we picked number 47. Well, we just started. This is voicemail number 47.

Actually, it was voicemail 111. Ah. But he goes into how he listens and how he watches and brings us into the fold. And I found it fascinating that you should follow his direction. Hey, Jeffie. You know what happens on Sunday? The Walking Dead hits Netflix season 9, right? So this is how it plays out.

Monday morning, I jump. I wake up 4.30 in the morning. Jump on the treadmill. Turn on episode one. Run for the whole episode. Shower, go to work. As soon as I get to work, I turn on a talking walking dead podcast. and listening to you guys pontificates about the walking dead and then I repeat to

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday thank you that's the best way to enjoy the walking dead thank you so very much I mean amen amen that's awesome that is awesome and amen and you're welcome our commercial I think yeah you're welcome so next week for fear I know that we jumped ahead to talking walking dead because dear Lord get here quick. Yes, please. But we have a few more episodes left of fear, and we'll see where it leads. I mean, the next week's episode is called Leave What You Don't.

I feel like that's already been done. I feel like that's a repeat already. Obviously, it's not, but it very well could be. So we'll see maybe the next to last two or three episodes we're heading into the direction we need to be in. I guess. I mean, I've thought. that it's had so much promise on it how many episodes we have well this is 12 and now we've got

uh i think four left three or four left wow so they're skipping to the showdown at the oil fields pretty quickly yeah which is interesting it makes me think that they might resolve that then move off to their you know or set their sights on wherever they're going to end up i don't know i i what will probably happen is they resolve this with the apple dumpling gang and then they get like at the end of what was it the last season when they saw the big you know factory

and that's our spot and we were like oh that's got promise I know I was getting kind of like a walking dead you know prison type feel for it just the way the setting looked and everything I bet we end up getting something like that again you know like maybe it ends with this

you know you see something off in the distance where they might you know I don't know but I mean that's how they added the last one. So again, we're just, it's a big circle. Circular, I know. I know. I know.

So, yeah, we have four episodes left, right? Leave what you don't. And then we have three yet to be titled episodes. So, okay. I hope we're, you know, we break free of the circle is all I'm hoping for. That's what we need to do. That's my, that's our quest for the next four episodes on Fear the Walking Dead. Break free of the circle.

Thanks for listening. Just a reminder to subscribe to chewing the fat too as well. I mean, this is part of the chewing the fat lineup, but it's a separate podcast. But if you want to be alerted when this gets uploaded on Mondays or Tuesday on holiday weeks, you need to subscribe to Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher. Thank you. Good day.